Last Friday, it was reported by the Washington
Post
and Ars
Technica
that Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Patrick Leahy, had
sent a letter to Judge Bates, the head of the Administrative Office of
the Courts (AO), urging the AO to put back online the recently-removed PACER
documents from five courts. I had not seen the full letter posted
anywhere yet, so I present it here.

Free Law Project agrees with Senator Leahy that taking these documents
offline represents “a dramatic step backwards” and that the Courts’
currently proposed work-around represents “a troubling increase in
costs…” We hope the AO will be open to restoring online access to
these documents and stand ready to help make these documents freely
available online for the public were that agreeable to the AO.